Some Anomalies 



fluous fingers. Finding himself all the bet- 

 ter for it, he transmitted the fortunate de- 

 fect to his race by way of an ancestral legacy. 

 Since then, the Scarabs form an exception to 

 the rule that fore-legs have digits like the 

 rest. 



This would be an attractive explanation, 

 but there are serious difficulties in the way. 

 We ask ourselves by what curious freak the 

 organism can have elaborated in days long 

 past portions destined to disappear after- 

 wards as too cumbrous. Can the plan of 

 the animal frame be devoid of logic, of fore- 

 sight? Does it design the structure blindly, 

 at the hazard of conflicting circumstances? 



Away with such foolishness! No, the 

 Scarab did not at one time have the tarsi 

 which he lacks to-day; no, he did not lose 

 them as the result of being harnessed upside 

 down when rolling his pill. He is now what 

 he always was. Who says so? Unim- 

 peachable witnesses: the Gymnopleurus and 

 the Sisyphus, 1 themselves enthusiastic pill- 

 rollers. Like the Scarab, they push them 

 backwards, head down ; like the Scarab, they 

 support themselves, during their arduous 

 task, on the tips of their fore-legs; and those 



1 Cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others: chap. xv. Trans- 

 lator's Note. 



261 



